Wednesday, October 2, 2013

Good News, OKCupid Users: You Can Pay to Avoid the Unattractive

I personally haven't been in the market in a very, very long time, so the whole online dating thing is a little confusing to me, but I can imagine the whole process is probably a bit troubling. You, as the sort of person who generally thinks of yourself as date-worthy and attractive, have to deal with all those pesky ugly/overweight/rundown by life types that keep trying to get your attention.

That old guy from EHarmony's no help, insisting that you should be paired with those with similar perspectives on life or whatever. ChristianMingle.com tells you to look at the beauty inside, which is pretty worthless if you can't bear to lay eyes on the ugliness outside.

Although the dating site rolled out body-type classification in the spring, the feature went largely unnoticed until now.

OKCupid said the feature is intended to help users narrow in on features they find physically attractive — just like they would in a bar in the real world.

"The feature helps people make dating decisions based on what people look like," an OKCupid spokesperson told Mashable. "It's as simple as that."

[...]

"We have some features reserved for paying users because things will disproportionately be driven to certain people otherwise," the spokesperson said. "If everyone could sort through attractiveness — which is crowdsourced by users on the site — only very attractive people would get attention."

Just like real life, there's still a catch. Users aren't obligated to categorize their body type, so you could still get someone who is "used up" (one of OKCupid's options), if the person on the other end of the screen isn't being honest with themselves or the world in general.

Also, in what seems more like a well-written joke on The Onion than an actual feature, OKCupid is possibly considering raising the standard $4.95 attractiveness sorting fee, if, for example, you're old or ugly yourself:

The monthly price of $4.95 can escalate based on age, how long you have been a member and even body type. When asked if a thin or average user would be charged a different price to look at body types on the site than a user who is overweight, the spokesperson said "it's possible."

On the other hand, maybe you want to put something less-than-ideal in your body-type-descriptor. In a better world, the sort of person willing to pay to avoid people they don't feel could ever be desirable would be the one who gets filtered out.